Work together to revive the world! Let's Play Soul Blazer!

Hello. I’m sure that some of you will be wondering who I am, and the sensible among you will be wondering more about the game. So before beginning, let me put those fears at rest.

I’m the Dread Cthulhu. I like games, though I am incredibly newbie about them all compared to the rest of you lot. The first console I owned was a GBA, which I got in 2002. So I haven’t been around the scene for long. And there’s not much else to say.

So what is Soul Blazer? Well, it’s by Quintet, the same people who did ActRaiser. Both games take some pretty obvious inspiration from other, more well-known games. ActRaiser is a cross between SimCity and a sort of Megaman-y side-scroller thing. The problem is that, in my opinion, it doesn’t do either of this particularly well. As a result, I’ve never been that fond of ActRaiser. Soul Blazer, on the other hand, is strictly in Zelda territory. It doesn’t try to shoehorn anything inappropriate in, and it works brilliantly. Just so there’s no doubt later, this isn’t one of those LPs where the guy doing it hates the game. I personally adore this game, even with all its bad translation, story that’s more plot hole than plot and crappy collision detection.

So, what’s the story? Well, let me give you the opening spiel. The game gives you this as an attract mode, but it would take 14 pictures to get the message across and, frankly, I’m not sure this story is worth it.

Wise men tell a tale late at night of a great King destroyed by the temptation of evil. The Freil Empire, as it was called in those days, was ruled by a powerful man, King Magridd. It seems most people thought the King was a fair and kind ruler. There were some, however, who felt the King himself was ruled by greed. One day the King happened to overhear two guards talking about a man named Dr. Leo. Now Dr. Leo was considered by all to be a great inventor and a genius. The King stayed up many nights wondering how he could use this great inventor to make him even more wealthy. All of the sudden the King had an idea. He ordered his guards to capture Dr. Leo and bring him to the castle at once! Soon Dr. Leo was brought to the castle. The King confined him to a small room and ordered him to invent a machine that would summon the king of evil, Deathtoll. Dr. Leo finally completed the machine. The King instantly called upon Deathtoll, hoping they might strike a deal. After many days the deal was complete. The King would bring Deathtoll all living creatures, and in return, Deathtoll would give him a gold piece for each. One by one, all living creatures began to disappear. Soon the world was completely empty. Two people were watching this catastrophe, the Master, and you, his follower. “The King was very foolish to be tempted by evil, however I will give him another chance. You must go down to Earth and revive the World!” the Master said. On a ray of light you descended to Earth...a warrior sent to revive the living and punish evil. A SOUL BLAZER!

That’s...possibly the worst plot I’ve ever heard ever. Why didn’t the King realise that making a deal for ALL living things would go tits-up? Why didn’t the Master do anything about this before the world’s desolate? How can you revive the living anyway? Well, nevertheless, that’s the story we’ve got to work with. And there will be quite a lot of story throughout.

Gameplay wise, Soul Blazer is quite unusual. The game has Zelda-style swordfighting, and some of the enemies come straight from various Zelda games. The main difference is that most of the monsters will come from small lairs on the ground, and contain a small amount of monsters each. Once I’ve killed them all, I’ll be able to seal the lair. This will (usually) either open up the next area of monsters or release a soul in the overworld. Depending on which of the 6 main areas I’m in (there are 7, but the last one is much shorter and mostly consists of the final boss), I’ll be releasing different sorts of things. Sometimes they won’t even be animate.

I’ll probably be going into a fair amount of depth on everything. The updates will probably be quite short. Tone-wise, this one will probably be most like Tanto’s Fire Emblem LP.



So here we are. As you’ll note, along the top of the screen we have our level (We’ll probably be in mid-20s by the finish), EXP (due to the finite nature of the monsters, grinding is near impossible), GEMs (the game’s MP, not currency as you might guess) and our health. The area itself is a hub, and I’ll explain that in more detail later. Anyway, the voice of The Master tells us that we need a name, if we are to converse with the living. Lunacy. Does the sky need a name? Does the river? Regardless.



We’re Cthulhu. Mostly because I love the idea of Cthulhu, the Great Old One and great Enforcer of the dread city of R’lyeh wandering around a wood rescuing squirrels.



Hell yeah. The Master then insists that we go and save the world for all creatures. Well, nothing to do here except go into the blue square on the left.



So this is our tutorial room. It’s a little strange, considering that the entire first zone is basically a tutorial zone, but whatever. You’ll notice a chest at the top, and a red circle to the right. That circle is a monster lair, and we’ll be sealing hundreds of the things over the course of the game.



Various status stuff. You could probably work out all the stuff on the first screen without any help. The second screen will be made clearer in a moment.



And we’ve got our first weapon, the bizarrely named Sword of Life. It’s pretty useless, since all the other swords will carry other nifty features, but hey! At this point, we're beggars. Quick note on the swords; there are two styles of sword fighting. I can either swing it at my enemies, or hold it in front of me and walk into them. At the start of the game, swinging will do about 2 damage every 3 seconds, whereas stabbing will do about 1 damage per second. The problem is that stabbing never gets stronger, but swinging does. At the start of the second area, there’s a monster which is impossible to deal enough damage via stabbing to kill before it heals completely. It’s basically a big warning sign telling you not to stab anymore.



And here’s Cthulhu showing off his stabbing move. Notice that the first monster has spawned. This is the simplest enemy, and we won’t be seeing it for very long. It will attempt to kill me by walking towards me. I take collision damage, and that’s about it.



He dies quickly, and this gold sphere appears. That’ll be explained in a moment.



The goblin things that follow him go the same way, and leave this behind them.



When I stand on it, it makes an old man appear. Typical. God knows what he’s here for, I’ve already got the lame starter sword.



Epileptic Tree #1: The game takes place during the Master’s rule during Season 3 of new Dr. Who.



Debatable.



Hey, he said ‘Take this!’ It’s not even trying, is it? The guy gives us something called Flame Ball Magic.

Oh good. None of that ‘barred school’ crap here.



Yep. For all intent and purposes, the monsters drop MP. This guy, the Soul of Magician, is our first Soul. He gives us permanent abilities. The fact that you have a Soul is shown by...



...this. So now I have a ball of light encircling me. Here rises the biggest problem of the game; the magic system is sort of crappy. The fire comes from the ball, not from me. That makes aiming a bitch, and makes the simplest strategy ‘hit with sword’. I will get other magic, but it’ll all be costly. The other issue is that the only punishment that dying gives you is the loss of all your GEMs. This doesn’t seem like a punishment at all, until you reach the final boss which actually requires magic to hurt it.



This is the hub. This is implied to be floating; think of it as the Sky Palace from ActRaiser. The gold block at the top is used for saving and moving around the world. The bottom block will teleport me down to Earth, at the beginning of the area. The first area is always peaceful; the souls I restore will go there. Along the way, I’ll open up more teleports so I don’t have to trudge across the level. The left block is normally halfway through, but here it’s the tutorial area because the level is so short. The right block, which isn’t open yet, always teleports us to just before the boss.



Here I am in the Grass Valley Shrine. Like I said, there are no enemies here. Top-right is the teleport; bottom-left is a set of stairs down.



As I head down, I hear a small voice. Three guesses what the voice is.

Mysterious Voice: There are many creatures being held in the Underground Castle. If you can release those creatures, the village will be reconstructed.



Yeah, it was a tulip. That tulip just to the left of us, to be precise. It’s never explained why it’s there, considering that Deathtoll took all life. Epileptic Tree #2: The tulip is undead.

Four words I never thought I’d say.

Next time: How about being one of my children?

This game is famously short but it packs more cool ideas into its seven areas than most games manage in twice that length.

The tulip is undead... yes, it all makes sense now...

I love this game. It's one of the only action rpgs I can actually beat, too.

I adore this game. It was my first JRPG, or should I say, the closest I got to one thanks to Nintendo not releasing JRPGs in Europe.

My how the mighty have fallen.. It use to be The Call of Cthulhu....

Now it's The Call to Cthulhu... by a tulip... alright undead tulip..... I think the High Priest of the Elder Gods has gone off his rocker.

Soul Blazer is still a masterpiece. The part where your mighty warrior rampages through a city of tiny toy soldiers remains one of the most entertaining stages in the history of games.

Soul Blazer is one of those games that I've played so many times I bet I could go through it with my eyes closed. I never understood why it's so good - most of the enemies are boring to fight and the game is the exact opposite of challenging, but gosh darn it, it's fun for some reason! Also, the music is AWESOME.

I'm interested in seeing how you tackle it.

This is on VC, isn't it?

It totally freaking SHOULD BE.

Nope. But it's by the people who did ActRaiser, which is. So there's high hopes for it.

That stage is awesome. My favourite's the underwater one, although there's no one level that I can't stand.

Not yet, but hopefully they'll remember OH WAIT AWESOME GAME DEAD BRAND BETTER WHORE IT OUT

did anyone else ever find shrink-wrapped, boxless used games in a K-Mart? because that is totally how I got this game!

I had no idea what it was at the time, but it was cheap and A GAME so I bought it anyway. it was a good decision!

Yeah, it's definitely a game that ends up being a lot more fun than it should be when you actually analyze everything that make it up. I think it's the exploration/adding new things to the world aspect.

Town-building is the best part of so many games.

Man, the story is excellent, I can't let that go by. You have to imagine Soul Blazer as if it were straight out of a fairy tale (and to continue the analogy, Actraiser would be out of Greek legends.)

The most interesting part of the combat is how your sword does more damage and hit stun at the end of the swing. It's an asymmetry sort of reminiscent how Link's facing direction determines which side he can hit more easily, except the ramifications are greater in this game.

The sweet spot is more to your side than your front, and changing directions will flip it around, plus there's that crab walk button to think about. So despite the simplicity of the game, maintaining an ideal position against your enemies requires full concentration.

One of the biggest strokes of luck for my young gamer self ever.

I forgot to ask, does anyone have any feedback on how I can improve this? I've got write-ups for all of the first world, and screenshots for most of the second.

So far I see no problems with it. Keep on going as you're going.

Seems fine to me.

Keep on keepin' on, I'm sure that the legions of us who have played this game to hell and back will add anything you miss (and have suggestions for what you need to show us).

To be honest, I didn't know the game was so well-known. I thought it was one of those small, obscure things that barely anyone played.

Same here. My only guess is EVERYONE was hard-up for an action RPG at the time or emulation spread word of its greatness far and wide.

That or, you know, the fact that this is Talking Time.

Games like Soul Blazer is what we be about! For always!

Last time on Soul Blazer, we chickened out just before entering the first dungeon. Well, no point holding it off any longer. Let’s go into the Underground Castle.



These three pictures sum up one major part of the dungeons in the game. Monsters come out of lairs, we kill them. After a certain number, they’re all gone and it turns into the gold circle. We step on that, something happens and it turns into the red square. Sometimes, it’ll just open up further areas. Sometimes, it will release a soul into the world.

Most of these shots are quite samey, and I won’t be showing you all of them. I will show you all the souls I release, though, because they often have something plot-relevant to dispense. Also are the items I collect and any interesting things going on in the levels.



The next thing I do is to release an old woman, who comes free with a two-storey house. It’s never mentioned why the souls disappearing makes the buildings and such vanish as well. It would have been quite creepy to walk around a completely deserted town.



Two new enemies. The green plant things subscribe to the ‘Goomba’ approach; walking towards Cthulhu and trying to bash into him. The blobs of water are our first respawning monster. Some enemies respawn whenever you leave the map. Unfortunately, leaving the map includes releasing a soul, which is a necessity. This can get irritating after a while. The water monsters themselves are relatively simple to deal with; they move very slowly but erratically.



Ah, a Medical Herb. This is one of the most common items in the game, if not the most. Its job is simple; it will restore us to full health if we croak. The game lacks any more minor health restorers, so we’ll stick with this one. There are other ways to restore our health, though; we can retrieve a soul or gain a level. Since we can only carry one herb, collecting another will also heal us to full.

Basically, we’re not short on healing. The existence of all these heals means that you shouldn’t try to keep up with my health; it will go up and down like crazy.



Another feature of the dungeon are these random blue jewels lying around the place. These contain things which you’ll see down the page a little. The fire in the top left is another respawner, and one of the most annoying. Takes a lot of hits, and does a good bit of damage. Most respawners we’ll leave; that one is going down every time.



Whatever this jewel is, it’s incredibly patronising.



It’s a fairy. If you look at the top, it’s just given us 30 EXP. A trifling sum normally, but it doubles what we have right now. It also gives us the option to return to the Valley. Since I’m doing well right now, I refuse.



Tool shop owner comes with everything you see here. Batteries not included. Also, you can get two items from the tool shop. Unlimited Magical Herbs and goat food.



Tulip: There once was a water mill here before the village was destroyed. I hear there is a man in the mill who runs the elevator in the Underground Castle.

I don't know why the developers felt the need to tell us this; there's a pretty clear sign that this is the case coming up.



Hey look guys! A new enemy! These guys will actually shoot balls of magic at you. You see, if our magic had been like that I might have actually used it!

Those guys die and reveal a bridge guard. He’ll let me into the second half of Grass Valley.



New enemy! These little green flies buzz around your head quickly, doing lots of damage. They're the most annoying enemy down here.



Hell yeah. Killing those gave me the Dream Rod, which lets me go into people’s dreams. Sadly, it doesn’t come with a metal glove.

Incidentally, killing the flies brought me up to Level 2. I didn’t get a shot because the level up screens are incredibly bad; they consist of the words ‘Level up’ flashing on the screen once for about half a second then disappearing.



Ivy?



Ivy. It lets me down into a cave, which contains an excellent item. I forgot about it to begin with, but I get it before I finish in Grass Valley.



Standard procedure. I open up what we call a ‘Door to Before’; a simple way of getting back to where I am. Sadly, it’s a conveyor belt which takes forever to walk along in the wrong direction.



Ah, so the tulip wasn’t lying to us.

Water mill keeper: Darn it! This stupid wheel! It’s so hard to turn!

Back in the Castle, we find an elevator.



Oh, it’s Dr. Leo again. You know, the guy from the intro.

Well, we can’t go any further in the Castle just yet. Let’s talk to some of the people.



Hey peanut gallery! What do we say? Hang on. You can rescue every soul around here and no children never appear in her house. Epileptic Tree #3: This is the female version of James Sunderland from Silent Hill 2. She killed her children, but can’t remember.

Yes, I know there are children wandering about outside. This is more fun.

Next time: Lisa, you must tell everything that you know to the person in front of you.

Heh, the only reason I beat/played the game is that K-Mart or something used to sell used SNES games right around the time the PSX came out, so I picked up this, Megaman X, and Actraiser 2. I only regret* one of those purchases.

Good job with the LP so far, I'm enjoying this as I've only went through the game once.

*Well, not really regret, but I only beat two of the three games.

The weird thing is, if it weren't for the imaginative setting and script this game would just be single-player gauntlet. But rebuilding the locations piece by piece is a perfect dangling carrot to keep you interested.

Yes, I guess? I doubt it could hurt.


I think removing any sign of human existence from an otherwise barren landscape gives a greater sense that something truly apocalyptic has happened.

I remember loving this game. Unfortunately, I've never played it without using an emulator.